


So First, Your Memory I'll Jog

by greebled



Category: Cats - Andrew Lloyd Webber, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Cats, FE3H Kinkmeme, Gen, Pet Therapy, Songfic, cw: misgendering of an orange cat, dimitri voice: i grow weary of writing smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25285021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greebled/pseuds/greebled
Summary: “No, no. What I mean to say is, no one can win a cat’s trust. Nor can it be earned,” Dedue fixed Dimitri with a look that was just a bit uncertain, like he realized it was silly to talk about something like this with so much gravity. Still, he continued. “It seems you try to appeal to them as if they are men, or horses, or dogs. But a cat is not a dog.”“A cat is not a dog,” repeated Dimitri, dumbly. The eye contact here was making him feel itchy, but he held it nonetheless. It felt important to.
Comments: 20
Kudos: 76





	So First, Your Memory I'll Jog

_You've heard of several kinds of cat  
And my opinion now is that  
You should need no interpreter  
to understand our character  
_-Judi Dench, "The Ad-Dressing of Cats"

Before he was a gruesome flicker in his periphery, Dedue was surprisingly good with cats.

Not surprising in that Dedue seemed like he would be _bad_ with cats, not at all. If anything, it made perfect sense he would be good with them. Watching him go about his business, they followed him like a trundling herd of fuzzy tumbleweeds. The strangest part was that he gave them very little reason for such devotion. Most of the time he hardly acknowledged they were there, only pausing now and then to offer the back of his hand to sniff. The most contact he saw was when he would hoist errant kittens to his chest when he caught them making a mess of the garden. He once witnessed him carry an entire armful around the docks, looking for a suitable barrel or cranny to nestle them into. Try as he might to insist animals didn't care for him, Dedue was a natural.

What surprised Dimitri about his vassal’s popularity was that he shared all the traits he blamed for his own fraught feline past. Too big. Too stilted in his language. Too busy. Too aloof. Too high on the noble food chain to be allowed such frivolities. Tainted by a horrible past, and even kittens could sense it. The last couple may have been an indicator of his disorganized thinking to come, but they were the ones that gave him the most pause. It was during one of those pauses, watching Dedue reach over during his weeding to cup the tiny head of a curious cat, that he looked up and noticed.

“Is something troubling you?” he asked. He was now working a knuckle on either side of his visitor’s chin. Dimitri was certain he’d never seen this animal before in his life, but it purred and purred like it was his friend’s lifelong companion. When did this happen? What did he miss?

Dimitri was concerned opening his mouth would send the cat off hissing, so he kept his voice low. “No, my apologies, Dedue,” he managed, staring hard at the little animal in the dirt. It froze, and so did Dimitri’s heart. Of course. Of _course_. “I was just captivated by your… Perhaps I would call it a fluency, in petting cats.”

He was still watching the creature as he spoke, so he didn’t notice Dedue was half-smiling until he could hear the amusement in his voice.

“A fluency in petting cats, your highness?”

“I do not know what else to call it,” said Dimitri, a bit more defensive than he’d meant. Unable to even look at the damn cat anymore, Dimirti looked at the pile of weeds. “I have never met a cat that has allowed me to pet it. To watch how easily you can win their trust amazes me. I do not know how you do it.”

There was a hum from Dedue, then quiet for quite some time, as it often did when he was getting his thoughts in order. The cat relaxed once more, for a moment, before inexplicably getting to its feet and walking away. Dimitri was about to apologize for offending it with his noxious presence when Dedue finally decided on his words. “You cannot win a cat’s trust.”

“Ah.” Harsh, but honest.

“No, no. What I mean to say is, _no one_ can win a cat’s trust. Nor can it be earned,” Dedue fixed Dimitri with a look that was just a bit uncertain, like he realized it was silly to talk about something like this with so much gravity. Still, he continued. “It seems you try to appeal to them as if they are men, or horses, or dogs. But a cat is not a dog.”

“A cat is not a dog,” repeated Dimitri, dumbly. The eye contact here was making him feel itchy, but he held it nonetheless. It felt important to.

Dedue sat back in the grass to continue. He rubbed his blunt fingernails in the grass to dislodge any white hairs before they clung to his black uniform. “They aren’t loyal animals, and only appear to understand enough about loyalty to understand they dislike it immensely. To have a cat offer you its company, you must act indifferent to it.”

“I see,” Dimitri nodded with the grimness of a commander at war. “They only trust people who let them strike first. It makes sense.”

There was that soft edge again to his voice. A glimmer of familiarity, of friendship, the still-too-bright sun peeking out from the edge of an eclipse. “Not quite.”

“Then, whatever do you mean?”

_With cats, some say one rule is true  
Don't speak 'til you are spoken to  
Myself I do not hold with that  
I say, you should address a cat  
But always bear in mind that he resents familiarity  
You bow, and taking off your hat, address him in this form: _

“Answer me, you damned animal!”

Unfortunately for Dimitri, he rarely interprets Felix’s voice as anything other than what it is. Similar to the others, but limited by flesh. He would like to lie, and tell himself that hearing his dear friend go hoarse berating him was worse than anything the dead threw his way, but with so many hostile souls privy to his thoughts, he could not. Being scolded was nothing compared to an extrasensory assault.

That didn’t mean he _liked_ it.

If Felix wasn’t consumed by rage, he would know that if Dimitri truly hadn’t noticed his hollering at him, grabbing his cape and yanking it would be a one-way ticket to getting punched clean through the chest. Dizzy as he was, he considered it, if only to put the ghosts into shock, into silence. At least four of his kills had been for this reason, and one of them even worked.

A raucous din of opinions at that, but loudest of all:

 _Ha!_ _Do it,_ heckled Glenn _. You won’t!_

Sarcasm doesn’t always land with Dimitri, especially in recent years, but today it saves a life. The idea of two Fraldariuses in his head nearly makes him pass out, so he clamps his fists to his sides. He sets his jaw. Impossibly quiet, a little snippily, he mutters. “Fine. Not today.”

More noise. It didn't matter. There’s only one way to appease them, and it isn’t this.

When he cranes his neck over his shoulder, it’s just a little bit too slow, like a head twisting on a pike. He can barely see his duke-to-be over the matted mass of his furs. They’re textured and rough-looking, the cobblestone behind Felix lumpy and glossy. Visual noise. He fills his lungs and feels every notch of his spine strain with it. Fur is dead animal, but it certainly doesn’t usually smell _this_ much like dead animal. He shuts his eye, vowing to never inhale at this angle ever again, and when it refocuses on Felix he can see him tense up under its icy heat.

His throat feels like it’s stuck to itself, so the growl he precedes his words with is for both intimidation and function. “If you are not asking if I am prepared to march to Enbarr,” his next breath comes as a shudder. His thoughts take up too much room to only manifest between his ears. They fill his chest, his heart, his belly. Uncurling is agonizing. “I will rip you asunder!”

“Oh, _will you_ , now? Do it, then. You won’t.”

Dimitri snarls in an oddly human way that sounds distinctly, impotently fed up.

He doesn’t turn to face him again. Felix is likely grateful to not have to look him in the eye, anyway. Even down in this pit, a part of him remembers when he confessed this peculiar aversion to him, how his small voice shook. Back when he was a child and his function was a spare shield to the Kingdom, he was so afraid this quirk of his would render him even less than that. Dimitri remembers not understanding, but standing up for him when other lords reprimanded him for being disrespectful-

 _Stop deluding yourself._ _It was_ _only you he couldn’t stand to look at!_

Felix is talking now, but the words wash over him with all the others. Dimitri feels like if he moves he’s going to dry heave or attack him or both, but he also knows he couldn’t move even if he wanted to. There’s too much input, to many memories being rechecked and contextualized by an outside force to orchestrate things like moving. He doesn’t open his eye for a long time, and when he does he blinks it rapidly, trying to clear a persistent gray spot. It just doesn’t disperse. It feels like its looking at him, tucked into the rubble, looking, looking. He shakes his head and tries again, only to find that it has far more detail than a floater would.

 _“_ Oh,” he croaks.

Behind him, Felix yanks his cape again. “ _Oh?_ Oh, what? Did I lose you again? Sothis, if I have to repeat myself, I’ll...” His voice trails off warily as a gnarled claw is lifted towards the rubble. Felix tilts to the side to see. The floater in the pile shifts, puffs up.

“Oh, cat.”

“Oh. Cat.”

_Before a cat will condescend to treat you as a trusted friend  
Some little token of esteem is needed, like a _ _dish of cream_ _  
Oh, you might now and then supply  
Some caviar or…_

“I cannot begin to explain to you just how wasteful this is.”

“How fortunate. That sounds like it would be stressful for you,” Mercedes titters, smiling like someone who isn’t power-walking fast as fuck down the bridge to the cathedral. For Felix to overtake her, he’ll have to break into a jog, which he won’t do, given the jog’s status as the silliest walking speed. Ashe, long resigned to being unshakably silly as a person, is pro-jog and a ways ahead of them both. His past life in food service comes in handy here; Even in his haste, the steaming platter of fish and roasted root vegetables retains its lovingly arranged presentation.

If Felix wants to swipe it away from him, he’ll have to be mean and embarrassing to a girl. It’s a perfect scheme.

Despite his declaration moments before, Felix elaborates. “The boar wont eat. I suspect it sustains itself preying on rats and lapping the moisture off the walls. What’s more, even if the man you _think_ you’re feeding was alive, Dimitri couldn’t taste a damn thing. Shoe leather and steak are the same to it. To put aside a fancy plate for him is an insult to the chef, the trout, and every bug that trout has ever eaten.”

Mercedes turns to look at him, slowing just a little. “I didn’t know that! How interesting. I would think a prince would have a very refined palette. It’s sweet how he doesn’t hold himself to a noble standard of cuisine.”

Much like their dinner had, Felix takes the bait without a second thought. “I wasn’t being figurative. There’s something the matter with his tongue. He’s told me before he hasn’t tasted a thing since Duscur.”

“His tongue? How odd. You’d think he’d have trouble talking if he injured his tongue...” She slowed her pace ever so slightly.

“So? What, do you think he’s-” Felix tripped a little on a rock, but kept stomping after her, matching her speed. “Do you think it’s lying? Dimitri always was a bad liar, and besides, you saw the way he ate. Like it was a chore.”

She hummed, putting a thoughtful hand to her mouth. “Well, just because someone doesn’t have the right words to describe how they feel doesn’t mean they’re lying. Translating feelings into language is tricky. Especially if you’re in pain.”

“He said, ‘I may as well be putting this soup on my arm’.”

“Do you know if he suffered a blow to the head?”

_“Hah!”_

“In Duscur?”

“Hard to say. There wasn't an inch of that animal that wasn't soaked in blood.” He stopped walking. Warily, he asks: “Why?”

Mercedes smiled brightly, stopping to stand right in front of him. “When I stayed at the church, I knew someone who experienced the same thing. She was badly concussed in an accident and lost her sense of taste. But, for her, it made her the opposite kind of eater. She was always so attuned to how things smelled, and their texture. It made her very picky!” 

This information was new to Felix, who had pretty obviously only considered sustaining that kind of injury as something that would kill you or make you an irredeemable idiot. He was utterly thrown by it, his words coming out awkward when he asked “Was it permanent?”

Before Mercedes could stall further, a muted crank of the gate, lifted just enough to let a thief slip in, signaled that she no longer had to.

  
 _Some potted grouse or salmon paste_  
 _He's sure to have his personal taste_  
 _And so in time you reach your aim_ -

“Dimitri?” came the voice. It cut through some of the fog. It wasn’t often anyone called him by his name. It was too uncertain to be Byleth’s, so it must be Ashe’s.

In another life, in a life that was truly a life, Dimitri thinks he and Ashe could have been friends. Since his return, everyone struggled with what to do with him. The general Blue Lion strategy was to value distance over change. Felix served as a counterbalance, circling him like a hawk, crowing everyone’s collective frustration. Ashe stood out because he didn’t know how to approach him _before_ he became what he was now. While others clung to their old scripts, he was still writing his. Mad as Dimitri was, he knew that, even if he couldn’t quite appreciate it.

What's more, this manuscript of his was also the only one that took his involvement with the dead seriously.

“Oh, er… Dimitri? Are you... In there?”

Contrary to popular belief, even the eternally damned aren't exempt from creaky knees. Now and then, he was forced to take his post a few rows back into the pews. Dead still, he could be mistaken for a stray mound of rubble. In a way, he supposed he was. Ashe was vulnerable right now, his eyes not yet adjusted to the dimness. He kept picking through the winding pews, though, calling his name, even as fear began to build in him. He had always been wary of the monastery at night.

Several hundred thousand pews farther back than that, what remained of Dimitri’s self cried out, trying to reach him. He really ought to say something, or move, or make any small noise at all to signal his presence. If he didn’t, it was going to scare Ashe senseless when he found him by mistake.

He understood this, and even wanted to act on it, but yet again his body refused to cooperate. How was it that he could feel such a spike in tension without actually moving a muscle? His inner chorus jeered, locking him farther into catatonia. He couldn’t breathe, or even raise his focus from his lap. All he could do was hear Ashe stumble around him. And wait.

There was a soft, muted plop between Dimitri’s knees. It was quiet, but in the silence of the cathedral it made both men flinch. Ashe swore, wheeling around to find its source, and wound up spotting Dimitri first. “Oh, Dimitri, there you are! It’s good to see you. Did you drop something?”

Words still failed, but at least he could force his head to look at him now. He was too far away for the clench and unclench of his jaw to be seen, maybe, but Ashe must have noticed the nod of his head. He looked down at the orange tabby kitten plodding the path from Dimitri’s Point A to Ashe’s Point B. Its fur stuck up funny on one side from where it had been pressed to his thighs. It meowed.

It had been so long since Dimitri saw someone light up in his presence it made his face get all hot. The kitten had a scratchy little voice and a lot of gumption. Instead of rubbing on Ashe’s boots, it stood a foot in front of him and demanded whatever he was carrying in brave, rickety squeaks. “Oh, my goodness! Hello!” He stooped to pet it and it skittered out of reach, only to turn and continue its orders at a distance. This only added to Ashe’s delight. “Who might this be?”

Dimitri, the Tempest King of Faerghus, known monster and child-slaughtering madman, creaked his answer like an opening coffin: “She answers to no man. She is a feral, self serving beast. She is scavenger. Until the gruesome inevitability of my slaughter, until she acts as the reaper’s assistant, disposing of my carcass…” He rattled in a breath, narrowed his eye. “I shall call her Cheddar.”

“Aw! Chedd-ar!” Ashe babytalks.

“ _Brrrr’et!_ ” insists the cat. “ _B’raugr!_ _Aaaaa!!!_ ”

He laughs and steps over her, then down the crooked length of the pew. “Sorry, Cheddar, this isn’t for you.”

It’s overwhelming to be approached, but when his companion bravely stands between him and Ashe, it’s almost bearable. Still, he shakes his head at Ashe’s words. “Not so. Of all the creatures in this place, I am least deserving. If my strength depends on it, I will eat what remains in the morning.”

He sits beside him, brow furrowed like he wants to protest this fact. Perhaps it’s because Ashe isn’t a fool, and he wouldn’t protest other facts, like the sky being blue, that he simply shakes his head instead. “All right, but I can tell you now she isn’t going to touch any of this,” he says, pointing to the pile of carrots, potatoes, and turnips.

Dimitri tilts his chin, scrutinizing him. “You know _nothing_ of Cheddar’s whims.”

“Cats should only eat meat, Dimitri! Even if she does nibble some of them, it would only take up valuable tummy space. Don't you want her growing up big and strong?” He does not believe him. His silence speaks for him, prompting Ashe to hold the plate aloft and towards him. Too high for Cheddar to reach, but well in range for Dimitri’s long arms. “Here, try offering her a vegetable.”

Hesitantly, he takes a little log of carrot off the plate and holds it to… The back of Cheddar’s head. She won’t even _look_ at it, her green eyes trained on the plate, screaming. A nostalgic pang of _what am I doing wrong?_ strikes him. It’s juvenile, and he feels it more than hes felt anything in weeks.

It makes him realize that until now, he thought of himself as doing a good job by her.

“See? You may as well eat it while it’s hot.” Ashe probes. After a quick glance to Dimitri’s not-quite-food-grade gauntlets, he mumbles a "here," and begins to wiggle the head off the cooked trout himself.

Dimitri puts the carrot in his own mouth. It isn’t until then that he realizes he’s starving, narrowly fighting the urge to just swallow it whole. It tastes of fuck all, but it is markedly more bearable to sink his teeth into than cold, mushy floor carrots. Ashe says something, and when Dimitri stammers a “What?” to get him to repeat it, he finds that he’s drooling.

Ashe is chuckling. Dimitri doesn’t hate it. “I said, give this a try _,_ your highness.” He’s holding the fish head as high up as he can, out and away from the cat. In the starlight, its scales glisten. When he takes it between two of his sleek metal claws, they glisten, too.

Something in him perks up ever so slightly.

“Very well,” he rumbles. He drops it on the floor and bends over after it.

Ashe is already reaching up to the platter again. His words come rushed, worried that was an accident, that it will break the spell. “Oh, here, don’t worry,” Dimitri drops something else. “I can break off some more.” More small impacts.

When Ashe looks to the floor, there are no fewer than five kittens wrestling with the fish head on the ground. With unprecedented tenderness, Dimitri’s gauntlet nudges into them, and adds a sixth. Ashe is barely able to tear his eyes from the fray. When he does, he’s greeted with a dozen pairs of glowing night-sight eyes in the fur and deep cloth wrinkles of his cloak. He reaches inside, grabs another.

“Perhaps you should.”

**Author's Note:**

> more housekeeping! im so delighted by how this fic was received still. thank you for reading! if you want, you can follow me over at @goofylionking


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